Little World

In 1950, a saint arrives at Orrin Bird’s house in a box. It is a box, he realises, that he built years ago, made for mundane household storage. But the saint is not mundane. She is only a child, incorruptible, so she may have died years or centuries ago. Her name, canonical status, and story are unknown. Yet, we soon discover, she is conscious, touching the lives of those she encounters as they handle her box, her body, the remnants of her extinguished life.

Josephine Rowe’s novel works as a eulogy, elegy, and prayer to this life. Rowe is preoccupied with endings, with three-part acts. Is the world ending yet? Is this the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning? What does it mean for things to go on far beyond where they’re supposed to end? What does it mean for this saint’s body to remain, when her life does not? What does it mean for her to belong in Orrin’s box, when he no longer uses it? What does it mean for Orrin’s little house, in the red Australian dust, to stay here when nothing else has?

Half a century later, Mathilde wonders the same thing. She has been road tripping across Australia, but here, discovering the saint still in her box, she pauses. Orrin Bird is long gone. But does this represent an end for her too? Or another beginning?

Rowe does not just care about endings, but also the little moments, the through‑lines, that give an ending meaning. The crunch of honeycomb, collapsing and pooling in Mathilde’s mouth. A name, heard in the mouths of the saint’s loved ones, passed on to their children, flickering on the radio from time to time. The mouths we kiss and the mouths we feed. It is, as Rowe suggests, a little world indeed.